GREAT DEBATE

What a difference a decade makes (“The First Annual Critics’ Summer Movie Face/Off,” by Jack Mathews and Kenneth Turan, Aug. 17).

I remember a time when Jack Mathews enjoyed movies and enjoyed ripping them up more. Now he seems dour and wishing those damn moviemakers would make his work a little more pleasant. That’s why they call it work, Jack.

And Kenneth “Can’t Please Him” Turan comes off sounding like a cheerleader for Hollywood. Who could have imagined?

I know it’s much too early to bring this up, but I think the first Oscar-worthy performance of the year can be found in “The Fifth Element.” Chris Tucker’s performance is the sort that earns Jim Carrey $20 million a film.

FREDERICK CLEVELAND

Hollywood

*

Turan contends--presumably with a straight face and apparently under no external duress--that this summer’s crop rivals any of the past few seasons and is something we should all be feasting on. Further, he marvels that the success of small, serious films within this cornucopia of smashing pumpkins proves that the industry is broad and diverse. One of these serious foreign films even played for an entire month, he reminds us. Not once does he point out that the elephant walk he endorses is relegating masterpieces like “Mondo” to two-week, 11 a.m. weekend runs.

Does Turan think that L.A. is a one-industry town and it’s his patriotic duty to support that industry no matter how threadbare its stitching?

MARTY TRUJILLO

Westminster

*

Jack Mathews writes that “Face/Off” is “numbingly excessive.” As a German John Woo admirer who reads lines like this quite often in American reviews about Woo’s films, I ask myself: Do you Americans only like slow, quite ordinary action scenes?

I always have the feeling that you demand fast action movies but if they are faster than, say, the second gear, you complain, especially if someone like Woo always does his films in the highest gear possible.

I hope that Woo continues doing films moving at light-speed, so that he does not drown in the pool of average Hollywood directors.

OLIVER NAUJOKS

Marburg, Germany